I have to admit to fudging the facts in the comic a wee
bit to make it work better, so here's the real scoop:

In mid-to-late 2004 eight men were beheaded by, well,
let's call them "terrorists", seven in Iraq
and one in Saudi Arabia. One of the victims was from
Japan, one
from South Korea, one from the UK, and the other five
were all Americans. After the votes in Ohio
were stolen and Bush was awarded the Presidency, again,
the Republican Party suddenly had no further use for
this bit of show-biz and so the
decapitation trollycar stopped. Totally... at least
until Arizona Governor Jan Brewer
began claiming
that
headless bodies were showing up along the U.S.- Mexico
border in 2010. (They
weren't.) After all, why waste a trope with an effective
track record?

Yes, I know it's unpleasant to think that a sinister
cabal like the Bush Administration, who would intentionally
look the other way
when told terrorists were going to strike in the U.S.
and then, in response, wage a vanity war in
Iraq for the benefit of their friends in the oil and
weapons manufactuiring industries, not to mention substantially
enrich his Vice-President who still
owned millions in stock with contracting giant Halliburton,
would order their Black Ops to send a few luckless
souls to Hell if every night on the Six O'Clock News
the tragically naive masses could
be reminded that Iraq was poised on the edge of Armegeddon
and that the only thing keeping those Muslim monsters
away from our shores was the steady hand of the Great
Texas Brush-Clearer himself. Considering that,
along the way, they were able to gut the Bill of Rights,
steal trillions in homes and mortgages, and pave the
way for
the end
of American democracy with the
Citizens
United decision I'd say those eight decapitations (Nick
Berg's "death", in particular, raised
more questions than it
answered.) were a solid bargain.

Woman: Just before the 2004 presidential elections
eight men were beheaded by terrorists in Iraq. I gotta
tell ya, that scared the bejeezus outta me. And yet
ever since the election, bupkis. Not one beheading. Why
is that?
GOP: Uh, well, you see, the reason is...
Woman: The reason is that Bush kicked some raghead
hiney and brought peace to Iraq. Isn't it?
Republican: Yes. Yes it is..